Elephant Smoothie Bowl + Homemade Salted Magic Shell

Hello, friends.

This is a smoothie bowl. 

You probably already know that.

But you're about to see a lot of pictures of it, anyway.

 I used to live on peanut butter banana smoothies. Sometimes I would have them for two or three meals, which illicited some concern from my parents, as any seemingly liquid diet probably should. But, seeing as it has plenty of carbs from bananas and fat and protein from peanut butter, I maintain it's basically a perfect meal, especially when you throw in some spinach. And, it tastes like dessert. I'm not even joking, it's like ice cream.

   Nowadays, this smoothie usually is my dessert: unlike my smoothie-pounding days of yore, I no longer get up at the crack of dawn every morning to go running and hustle upstairs after work and school to exercise some more. Nor do I utilize TV time or any long stretches of standing still to do sit ups and jumping jacks and leg lifts. So much to say, my workout routine is a lot less exacting these days, so I try to avoid hitting the peanut butter as hard as I have in the recent past. 

  But when I get an ice cream craving, this hits the spot. Last week I got extra crazy and indulgent and made homemade Magic Shell. To be fair, this recipe was pioneered by both my father and I, on some late night one hot summer, predating my smoothie years, back in our ice cream phase. (That's right, we had an ice cream phase. My dad and I also had a cheesecake phase. . . no one is really sure why we didn't end up morbidly obese).

 Anyway, eating what is literally a frozen fat, sugar, and cholesterol slurry at all hours of the night wasn't quite hitting the spot for us: we wanted hardened chocolate sauce all over the mess, too. Due to our overzealous application of the Magic Shell we found ourselves holding an empty bottle of the stuff one hot humid evening, staring at each other and wondering how it had all come to this.

 We may not be too bright, but we can read, and a quick perusal of the ingredients list sent us into Martha mode. It's just coconut oil, sugar, and cocoa (and some other things), and since my mother is one of those good people who tries to subtly dupe the family into make healthy eating choices, we had coconut oil. Problem solved.

This is basically what your end product looks like, only less blurry and crappy.

 A note on this particular smoothie bowl: armed only with frozen bananas and a powerful blender, you can make something the exact consistency of ice cream. As you can see, this is not as thick as ice cream. That's because my blender isn't powerful. If that is your situation as well, add some water or almond milk initially to get everything blending, then add a few ice cubes at the end to thicken it back up. I really didn't have the patience or inclination to do so in this case, because it was hot and I just cut corners that way.

Elephant Smoothie Bowl

The smoothie:

1.5 frozen bananas

.5 tsp vanilla

.5-1 tsp cinnamon

1-2 tbsp peanut butter

Almond milk

Salt

Blend ingredients in blender or food processor, adjusting thickness as desired with milk. You can always add some ice cubes if you accidentally make it too watery. 

Homemade Magic Shell:

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 tbsp cocoa powder

4-6 drops liquid stevia

.25 tsp vanilla

.25 tsp sea salt

Melt the coconut oil. If it's a broiling hot summer day, your oil may already be melted. Go you! Mix in the rest of your ingredients and pour over your smoothie/ice cream bowl. I usually stick it back in the freezer to let it firm up. You could also sprinkle a little salt on the shell.

Other tried and true toppings:

Raisins

Chia seeds

Granola

Larabar 

Peanuts

More peanut butter!

More banana! 

Dried banana bits

Graham cracker crumbs

Coconut whip